


You're not my Cas II

by CopperMask (Hard_boiled_candy)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, M/M, No Smut, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 07:02:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12293844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hard_boiled_candy/pseuds/CopperMask
Summary: AU Castiel tries to figure out his sexuality, and then decides he'd rather be cuddling; sex is messy, confusing and way too intense. Dean dropped his only clue a while back. Sam decides it's a good time to book it to Sioux Falls to hang with Jody.





	You're not my Cas II

**Author's Note:**

> Follow on to You're not my Cas. Castiel in this story is from another universe, who ended up in this universe accidentally; he's still trying to figure things out. Alternative Season 13.

“Easy!” Castiel said.

Dean didn’t flinch these days when Castiel got close. Two strong competent hands pulsed against that ever-painful part of his shoulder-blades and instead of flinching he sagged a trifle and said, “Oog,” in a faint voice.

“Is that a good oog or a bad oog?” Castiel asked. Dean couldn’t see him but he could tell that he was smiling.

“It’s a ‘shut up and keep working’ oog,” Dean said. He could usually tell if Castiel was using angel juice on him; this impromptu massage appeared to be brute force and no small amount of talent.

“Where the hell’d’ja learn to do that,” Dean murmured after a minute.

Dean could still hear the faint smile in his voice. “Jody. Then Donna, then the hunters-in-training started asking for it. They said I could work on them without being ‘creepy’, whatever that means.”

Dean was no longer capable of speech, and so he did not air his opinion, which was that this was far too awesome to be ‘creepy’.

Sam walked into the room and stopped, somewhat abruptly. They’d been taking a breather after clearing out the hungriest, saddest vamp nest they could recollect seeing in ages, so it was no surprise that Dean was taking a load off. That he was sitting and letting Castiel touch him, and that he had his eyes closed and appeared to be entranced, seemed most unusual.

Sam knew better than to say anything.He nodded to Castiel and slipped back outside.

 _What the hell? They’ve been so weird,_ he thought.

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Dean and Castiel had had a conversation. Or they had just gone through one of those weird phase changes in their ‘relationship’.

Afterward, they were completely different with each other. Gone were the long staring contests, the heavy sighs and the awkward pauses, which made the normally peaceful Sam want to up and slap them both. They had said _something_ to clear the air, and most of the tension between them was gone. Sam had no idea what had happened and Dean had been alternately ‘blob-of-mercury slippery’ and ‘vaguely and menacingly hostile’ when questioned about it. Castiel merely said that the two of them had set boundaries, so it seemed weird that immediately after that conversation Dean lightened up and Castiel became somewhat more irritable. They were more openly affectionate with each other - but there was less sexual tension. They even started calling each other pet names; Castiel called Dean ‘Hon’ and Dean called Castiel ‘Hubs’, which nearly gave Sam a heart attack the first time they did it. Both of them told them they’d done it to get a rise out of him, and then they didn’t stop doing it, sometimes getting very sarcastic about it.

He didn’t know that what had really happened was that Cas had laid down some truth bombs on Dean.

“It doesn’t matter how we got here, we have to go forward. What we are is married. We’re married _already_. We didn’t go to church or have a ceremony, so nobody knows, and yes, I _know_ we were married to different versions of us, but … close enough. Usually when people are married, they have sex. We don’t. So what I’d like is to quit worrying about the fact we may or may not have wanted to have sex with ‘our Dean and Castiel’, we don’t need or want to with _each other_. And I’d like to start worrying more about being married better; being mutually supportive and nagging each other to eat something and giving each other back rubs – now that I know how.”

“Dean, you already tested me,” Castiel added, trying to prod Dean into speech.

“I did, didn’t I,” Dean said, thinking about the kiss in Jody’s garage. “And you chose your Dean.”

“I _had_ to. I can’t be pragmatic about it. I loved him, and even if I’m not really able to tell your _soul_ from his, which I have to say has always surprised and puzzled me, he _behaved_ differently enough from you that it sometimes ties me in knots.”

“I know, buddy,” Dean said. It was the first time he’d ever called Castiel buddy. They were in a strange, long-term-fucked-up situation, and honestly, Castiel’s spitballing sounded like a real solution. Knowing for certain that this version of Castiel did not want him ‘that way’ was a relief. It became a matter for jokes, not anguish. It was the new normal.

All that happened out of Sam’s view.

He was burning with curiosity, but had no purchase on the problem.

Sam was calling Jody often anyway, but now he resorted to calling Jody pretending to ask if she knew what was going on with Castiel, but really to talk to her because she was one of the few women he knew he could be a hunter in front of and there had been a little, speculative spark in her eyes that last visit over Thanksgiving and sometimes when he heard her particular text notification his heart would start to pound, because at some point they’d started flirting. It was very subtle. Someone who didn’t know them both well would be hard to put a finger on it, reading the texts. Jody started putting a random x in the text, close to the end, sometimes in her name. Sam, thinking about it, started to do the same.

As for Dean and Castiel, it got weirder. A while after the eye-fucking (for such it had always appeared to be) stopped, Sam was going through the credit card charges for Castiel, and found two charges to an escort service.

At first Sam thought that it was case related, and then he checked the dates.

They corresponded to when Cas had borrowed the car and gone into town.

“Okay, what the fuck, Castiel?” Sam said to his laptop screen.

This was not a conversation he wanted to have in front of Dean, so he waited until Dean was making a beer run and said, “Castiel, I gotta talk to you about something.”

“Sure, Sam.”

“Did you hire… did you hire, uh, sex workers?”

Castiel’s eyes got so enormous, and his expression so guilty, Sam felt bad for asking him.

“Don’t tell Dean!” Castiel blurted. “I mean,” he said, “I should probably tell him myself, or he may become upset.”

“I don’t - I don’t want to talk about it with Dean,” Sam said, with all the sincerity he could muster. He couldn’t imagine anyone talking to Dean about it without an explosion which would strip every tree and shatter windows for a two mile radius.

“Is it - did I do something wrong?”

Sam tried to look consoling and stern at the same time. “Castiel, I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t have moral objections to either providing or consuming sexual services, but maybe not on a stolen credit card – without telling me – when I’m watching the balances? If you really need the money for it we can figure something out.”

“I see,” Castiel said. It wasn’t clear that he did. “I’ll let you know.”

The subject didn’t come up again, not with Sam. If Castiel told Dean, he sure didn’t share that knowledge with Sam, and Dean, if he knew, wasn’t talking to his brother about it.

Dean looked at the credit card limits so rarely that it didn’t occur to Sam that he might check up on Castiel. A month later, Dean reviewed Castiel’s credit card expenditures (for Christmas shopping clues, because Dean was an eight-year-old boy in a grown-ass man’s body), found the charges for the escorts, and lowered the boom.

They’d gotten Thai takeout, which Dean hated and Sam and Cas loved, so he was in a bad mood to start off with. They were between hunts and at loose ends, holed up in two motel rooms outside of Florissant, MO.

“So, Castiel, mind explaining why you’ve been hiring hookers on the family dime?”

“I won’t do it again,” Castiel said, mentally wondering how the family dime could possibly correspond to stolen credit cards. He wouldn’t make eye contact with Dean. Dean was now wishing he’d decided to talk to Castiel in private, as Sam was making a titanic eye-roll where Castiel couldn’t see him.

“Any comments, Sam?” Dean said awkwardly.

“Dean, not all of us can walk into a bar, find a sexual partner and make it look like it ain’t no thing,” Sam said diplomatically.

“Exactly,” Castiel said with satisfaction.

Dean spread his hands and opened his mouth in disbelief. “With me as a wingman….”

Castiel, against all expectation, looked at Sam, eyebrows up, and laughed out loud.

“Some things you have to learn by doing, Dean,” he said. Then he giggled again. “Also, some events you don’t drag your coworkers to,” and he slurped up a big wad of Pad Thai noodles, still grinning.

Dean tried to stay quiet, but his curiosity was killing him. “So what happened?”

Castiel turned to Sam. The smile vanished, and was replaced by an expression close to reproach. “Is it normal for coworkers or family members to ask each other about their encounters with sex workers?”

“Uh, that would be a hard no, Cas,” said Sam.

Castiel addressed Dean, who looked like he was about ready to cut a man. “Dean, neither custom nor necessity require that I tell you.”

“Well, at least tell me you had a good time,” Dean said truculently.

“Dean…” Sam said, a clear warning in his voice.

Dean was defensive. “All right, all right, lighten up, just curious I guess.”

Castiel stayed calm. “As was I. My curiosity has been satisfied, so I won’t be spending any more stolen money on sex workers.”

“It just seems a shame that anybody had to pay for it,” Dean said, not wanting to give it up. “I mean, you’re a good-looking guy, and you shower, I don’t – “

“Dean, please stop,” Castiel said.

“There’s no chance you could have gotten anybody pregnant,” Dean said in sudden horror, “Because - ”

Once again, Castiel cut him off, “Dean, there is absolutely no way that I would ever do anything, and I mean _anything_ , to bring a Nephilim into this world. We all had so much fun the _last_ time it happened.”

“Salty,” Sam said under his breath. Aloud, he said, “Dean, give it a rest, and please extend to Castiel the respect for his privacy that you expect from him.”

“He can walk through my thoughts as if they were a fucking supermarket!” Dean groused.

“And I don’t, because I don’t want to, you don’t want me to, and it’s wrong,” Castiel said. “As you have said forty-three times so far, I’m not your Cas.” He sucked out the last of his soda, with the usual accompanying staticky sound.

Dean made a face. Sam changed the subject to Jody and the girls.

 

Dean did not let it go. When he got Castiel alone in the Impala, he asked again.

Castiel was ready for him.

“So you took a walk on the wild side, eh Castiel? What was she like?”

Castiel spoke in a mild, almost bored tone. “If you give me a five hundred word essay on your last sexual encounter, I’ll be happy to spill all of the details.”

There was a stunned silence. Then Dean said, sounding very put-upon, “I dunno if I could put together five hundred words about jerking off in the shower this morning.”

“I’m sure you could, if you described what you were fantasizing about at the time,” Castiel said. Dean had gotten used to Castiel not looking at him, and so when he turned, appalled, to glare at him, he was not expecting that Castiel would be looking at him with such mischief.

“It’s all right, Dean,” Castiel said. “I’m sure your Cas would have filled youin on every last detail, but from what Sam tells me you and he already visited a brothel together.”

“Sam told me to keep my pie hole shut, because I just sound jealous,” Dean said, grumbling. It was an admission Castiel had not expected to hear.

“You’re not jealous, you couldn’t be,” Castiel said. Dean was totally being jealous, but lying like a cheap rug was far safer. “You are rather, um, _proprietary_. Even if I’m not your Cas, you’re still very much concerned with my well-being – ”

“Shenanigans, is more like it,” Dean muttered.

“ – but you’re not being very adult about it.”

A couple of miles rolled away beneath them before Dean spoke again.

“You probably think I’m an idiot.”

“It’s not in my nature to think of you in those terms,” Castiel said.

“What terms do you think of me in?” Dean asked, angry and curious.

“You are my brother-in-arms,” Castiel said, nodding his head as he spoke. “I owe you a debt, for my life, and I owe you my loyalty, or at least as much as you’ve shown me. Also, I think of you as being my non-sexual partner.”

That made Dean wince. He’d been an asshole to Castiel since Jack died. Not so much recently, but he’d done everything he could to make Castiel unwelcome.

“Next time you get the urge, let me be your wingman, at least,” Dean said.

“Not a chance, Dean,” Castiel said placidly. “And as I said to you and Sam, I won’t be spending any more stolen money on paid companionship; Sam was right. I think I need my own revenue stream so I can pay for my own fun without you two knowing the subtotals - so I’m going to work on that.”

 

Dean, who had almost stopped drinking, started again. He was no longer as young as he’d been; the strain on his system came out as a higher likelihood that he’d puke while drunk and increasingly epic hangovers. He asked Castiel to mojo him into better health and was hurt when he refused.

“After or during a hunt, I will heal you. Self-inflicted pain from alcohol-related excess caused by your low tolerance for boredom, ghastly upbringing and world-crushingly stressful job, no. I won’t.”

“I’m dyin’ here.”

“Quit trying to _kill_ yourself and you won’t feel like you’re _dying_ ,” Castiel said. “Or less so,” he amended, looking at Dean’s color. It made no difference. Dean came into Sam’s motel room drunk the next night, and he puked on his own bed. Sam, who was about ready to rip out Dean’s lungs and feed them to a demon (but not really) rose in disgust and banged on Castiel’s door.

“Can I bunk in here?” he asked when Castiel, who apparently had been asleep, against all expectation, dragged himself to the door.

“Why?”

“Dean threw up all over his bed,” Sam said. Normally he’d help clean it up, get new bedding and all that, but he was tired and crabby and so very, very done.

Castiel was wearing the pyjamas with the bee motif, apparently a gift from Donna. He said, “Give me your keys. I’ll deal with Dean, you rest,” and shuffled in his slippers over to Dean’s door, let himself in and mojo’d away the mess. The smell lingered. Dean snored once, loudly, and then fell into what seemed like a steady grind of bad dreams. After an hour he woke up, yelling.

He was still drunk, of course, and disoriented that Castiel was there and Sam wasn’t.

And then he burst into tears.

“I miss him, God I miss him so much,” he sobbed. He said some other things, not very intelligibly, and Castiel ignored him. He already knew that he wasn’t ‘his Cas’ and was not in the mood to hear more.

Castiel fetched a glass of water and a tissue and got Dean sitting up and wiping his face. Dean sobered up, or pretended to,

Cas said, “I’m not going back to my room because I think Sam at least should get some sleep.”

“You don’t sleep. You’ll just sit there watching me.”

“I will _so_ sleep. I’ve gotten into the habit, and my vessel really enjoys it,” Cas said.

“You sleep?”

“Yes, Dean, remarkable as that sounds, I don’t need to sleep, but like many other human things I’ve done, it’s something I’ve learned to appreciate.”

Dean snickered. “So I guess sex is one of the human things.”

“I think we’ve exhausted any possibility for conversation on that subject,” Castiel said. His words and tone of voice were at odds.

“Aw, c’mon Castiel, I’m dying to know, what kinky shit did you do? Were there feathers? Maybe some cosplay?”

“Quid pro quo, Dean, you tell me all about your last sexual encounter - with someone beside yourself - and I’ll happily oblige.”

Dean shut up. He opened his mouth and closed it. He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“Goodnight Dean,” Castiel said, and lay down on Sam’s bed with his back to Dean. For the next fifteen minutes he listened to Dean try to cry as quietly as he could, but he was still pretty drunk and his attempts to be quiet were ludicrous. Finally Castiel rolled over and said, “Dean, get up and wash your face.”

Dean didn’t move, but he stopped making so much noise. Castiel rose, dampened a washcloth and brought it to Dean.

“Please calm down, Dean,” Castiel said quietly.

“Yeah,” Dean said after a long pause. He wiped his face and got up.

“Are you leaving?” Castiel asked, perturbed.

“I feel like road-kill’s been shittin’ in my mouth,” Dean said, with a drunken flourish. “I’m gonna brush my teeth and go back to sleep and quit bothering you. Maybe you can sleep in Sam’s room.”

“I don’t have the key any more and I don’t want to wake him up and I don’t want to fly there because I’m living human except for emergencies. I can go out to the Impala if you like,” Castiel said.

“No,” Dean said frowning. “You should have a bed.”

He brushed his teeth.

Dean re-entered the room wearing a very subdued expression. He seemed to have shrunken down somehow.

“Castiel, can I ask a really huge favor?”

“I’m not recounting my sexual -“

“No, I mean – ”

Dean stammered to a halt, after cutting Castiel off.

“Can you bring your wings over?”

Castiel considered it. “Yes; but why?”

“Sam said - Sam said you held him with your wings and - it helped.” He smiled, but it was sickly, as if he didn’t really expect a positive response. “Is that brother-in-arms-y enough for you?”

“You’re in pain and can’t sleep, of course I can try to help.”

“What do I have to do?” Dean said, sounding like a little boy.

Castiel was moved by Dean’s vulnerability. “Lie down and close your eyes.”

Castiel lay down next to him and brought his wings over. There was that little crumpling noise, and suddenly Dean felt his heavy, tired, worn-out feeling of drunkenness and loneliness and travel-weariness lift. It was as if he had been buried in a mudslide, psychologically, and he was still battered from the event but could feel the possibility of recovery, of happiness, rise in his body, a glowing thread of hope where dingy emptiness had been.

His breathing slowed, and he slept.

Castiel slept as well.

 

Castiel needed less sleep, and woke earlier, and moved back to what had been Sam’s bed. He checked the time and thought it best to let Dean sleep.

He texted Sam.

**I’m up, Dean’s asleep.**

**Wanna grab coffee? You’ll have to come back here for your clothes.**

**Sure.**

Castiel locked the door and shuffled back to his room. It was May, but warm already just after dawn, and it looked like it would be a beautiful day.

Sam greeted him with a smile. “Thanks for helping me out last night. I take it Dean wasn’t too much of a pain in the ass.”

“He asked me to bring my wings over,” Castiel said, and then realized that Dean would _not_ thank him for saying that.

“Wow,” Sam said. His clear, honest gaze said more than the word, by far.

“I sheltered him, he slept,” Castiel said. “He was weepy for a while, but nothing truly embarrassing.”

“I do know how he gets,” Sam said sympathetically.

“Now, to the best part of being human,” Castiel said.

“Coffee,” Sam said. They looked at each other and shared a family smile, warm and accepting and affectionate, and Castiel stepped into the washroom and changed into a button down shirt with tailored slacks. Every time Sam saw him wear something that wasn’t a trench coat he smiled like he was seeing it for the first time.

Castiel picked out a deluxe breakfast burrito for Dean, and got him two cups of coffee. (“I suspect he’ll want three.”) He got a single slab of hash browns for himself, and ate it with slow enjoyment in the car on the way back to the motel. Something about the crunch and the grease made his vessel very happy, but he knew better than to challenge it too much. Anytime he ate or drank, he would inevitably have to go to the bathroom, and he tried to keep all such excursions to a minimum. He didn’t want any nosy questions from his fellow hunters about occasionally using his grace to ‘take care’ of that.

Dean was just waking up when Castiel and Sam came in. He smiled, blinking slowly, at both of them, and then rose, saying, “Outstanding!” in a cheerful voice when Castiel waved the burrito in front of him.

“Thanks for taking care of me last night,” Dean said, after he ate. He didn’t look at Castiel.

“It was my duty,” Castiel said stolidly. Dean threw him a glance of reproach, and realized he was being teased.

Castiel said, “I’m going to check out and then go for a walk,” and he left the brothers together. It was time to do some thinking.

 

It was hard, doing as the humans do. None of this ‘flying to Bali to sit in the forest and listen to the birds’ while he thought.

Compressing himself down into a theatre this small made it seem like he couldn’t possibly have any scope, and yet he did. Human life was a tiny fractal corner of everything else. Even in this tiny sphere, so much smaller and denser and coarser than what he had know for aeons, there was everything to keep a being happy, and busy. It was remarkable. He’d watched a youtube video when a woman had said, “In this universe, it’s love and work all the way down,” and while that wasn’t really true, it was true in a certain way, a metaphorical, artistic way.

He pondered that.

When he had hired the sex worker, Celeste, she had been so warm and friendly that he had immediately liked her. Her vessel was attractive, but he could sense an open curiosity, a liveliness to her, which was more important by far. He explained what he wanted, and added he needed to be coached in how to cuddle, afterward. He had already paid, so there was no awkward money exchange.

“You’ve never cuddled,” she said, obviously surprised.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever done it right,” Castiel said, uneasy.

“It’s okay; we’ll be fine and I promise you I’ll give you the cuddling of a lifetime,” Celeste said. She quirked her eyebrows provocatively, and started to strip in a relaxed way.

Castiel, no matter how hard he tried, felt that his vessel and his grace were at odds. His vessel wanted to direct this encounter, that was for certain; the unity he normally felt between the two, vessel and angel, seemed to have vanished.

He released himself to the inevitable, and observed that his dick was hardening and his breathing was quickening. She stood back and touched herself and he remembered touching her everywhere and thinking she wasdeliciously smooth and smelled wonderful. His sense of touch seemed to expand outward, obliterating his other senses.

He felt the condom being rolled down. He caressed her sweet breasts, with their oddly cool nipples, that shrank and swelled again under his hands. She helped him and he was at first overwhelmed and then grimly determined and then overwhelmed again by the demands of his vessel, which radiated out an immense ‘thank you’ into the ether as he orgasmed, and then he and Celeste spent an interesting half hour cuddling.

He preferred the cuddling. Sex was fun, but no matter how civilized Celeste was, it wasn’t really meaningful. It was an itch. He had scratched it. He began to see Dean’s point; the meaningless sex wasn’t completely meaningless, it was maintenance. Keeping the pipes cleaned out, so to speak.

He thanked her and thought about the next thing he’d try.

 

Luke said he was twenty-four, but he was closer to thirty, Castiel could tell. It didn’t matter. Castiel wanted to know if his vessel liked men better, or whether the desire was focussed on Dean, and it didn’t matter what body housed his brilliant spirit, or whether perhaps something else was going on. He smelled amazing, almost as good as Dean.

Giving a blowjob with a condom, which Castiel tried first, was incredibly hard work. Castiel thought there was no way he’d do this for fun, with or without a condom. Luke gave him pointers, which was helpful, and eventually he had an orgasm; then it was Castiel’s turn.

He imagined that it was Dean’s mouth, Dean’s hands, Dean’s ragged breath and spit making those incredible sounds, and it didn’t take long.

Castiel was annoyed when Luke said that cuddling was extra, and left. Then he realized it was not really a problem, that he’d gotten what he came for. Sex just wasn’t necessary for him, he concluded. He felt physically better afterward, but without an emotional connection to his partner, it felt like an expensive kind form of exercise, not whatever it was humans thought they were chasing when they wanted sex. And humans had so many reasons, not all of them good, to have sex.

The experiment had been interesting.

After a month or so, when Dean was away running errands, Sam managed to bring the conversation around to it, by saying, “I am not asking for details about your experiences with sex workers, but I’m wondering if there was any – emotional fallout – for you.”

Castiel considered it. “Not really. Sex no longer seems completely pointless to me - it’s more that I try not to think about it, and in fact most of the time I have to use my grace to ‘block’ sexual sensation so I’m not behaving inappropriately. I sometimes use grace to discharge any sexual sensations, which is … well, it’s a little strange, I guess. I’m more interested in physical contact - affection, touch.”

Sam smiled. “Cuddling.”

“I think I could get by without having sex again for the rest of my time in this vessel. Cuddling though, that’s enough like what I was used to as an angel, it’s very restful and I hope to do more of it.”

Castiel sighed. “As for the emotional fallout, having sex with a man was an easier orgasm, but he nixed the cuddling; my experience with the woman was emotionally much more satisfying.”

“One of each.”

“I was thinking of more variety but I no longer think it’s necessary. It was an experiment and I learned what I needed to.”

“I have to tell you, Castiel, that I’m relieved. Really relieved. I know you’re a powerful and scary smart guy, but I’ve seen you get abused and manhandled and I just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“You’ve seen _Dean’s_ Cas get abused and manhandled. Not me,” Castiel said, annoyingly. He raised an eyebrow at Sam.

“You know what I meant,” Sam said, frowning.

“Precision is preferable,” Castiel said. “Please don’t tell Dean anything; it will arouse his curiosity and then he’ll be pestering me for details.”

“I really can’t see me ever wanting to talk to Dean about this, seriously, and I won’t bring it up again,” Sam assured him.

 

And Dean would not let it go. He’d try to guess which positions Cas had had sex in. He made the assumption that both times it was a woman which was irritating in and of itself. Finally, after a long car ride to get groceries, during which Dean kept saying things like ‘Reverse Cowgirl?’ and ‘Tell me that you enjoyed it anyway,” Castiel snapped.

“I enjoyed the cuddling. The male escort wouldn’t cuddle with me, so I was a little annoyed with him.”

Castiel could almost hear Dean’s brain go <spung!>.

“A male escort…” he said faintly.

“One of each, yes,” Cas said.

Dean coughed, and then cleared his throat. His knuckles paled, and then he tried to laugh, but it petered out into a grunt.

“Cuddling,” Dean said again.

Castiel said, “I experience sex in this vessel as inconvenient, messy and confusing. Cuddling, however, is not confusing. It’s pleasant. Actually, it’s very desirable.”

“But you said – “ Dean said and then realized that it was probably a good idea to change the subject.

“So anytime you want to cuddle, or want me to bring my wings over, just ask,” Castiel said in a kindly voice.

Dean made a noise as if he was no longer one hundred percent in charge of his glottis; it was a breathy whine, which abruptly stopped, as did any further questions about Castiel’s sex life, so Castiel pronounced himself relieved.

 

Dean came in late, as usual. Castiel and Sam were sprawled on their respective beds, asleep, but Castiel was occupying far less of the bed, so Dean quietly removed his boots and lay down next to him.

He woke up with Castiel’s nose about an inch from his, and he was hoarsely whispering, “Dean, Dean wake up.”

“What?” Dean said groggily. He realized he’d been rubbing his erection against Castiel’s ass and came to complete consciousness, jumping away and squawking.

“It’s okay, it’s just that if we’re going to be having sex I’d prefer if both of us were awake,” Castiel said soothingly.

Dean whispered so loud he could be heard through a door. “No man, that is not happening.”

“So you’d prefer if I was asleep?” Castiel said. He was teasing, but Dean was offended.

“What the hell is going on over there?” Sam said in a phlegmy voice.

“Dean was rubbing up against me in his sleep and I asked him to stop,” Castiel said soothingly.

“Shut the hell up man,” Dean said.

“Relax, Dean, I know you’re not responsible for what you do in your sleep! For all I know you were thinking about an attractive brunette waitress,” Castiel said. “Do you want me to sleep in the Impala?”

“Screw that noise,” Sam said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. “Dean’s the culprit, why should _you_ sleep in the car because he’s dry humping you in his sleep?”

“You shut the fuck up,” Dean said.

“I don’t mind,” Castiel said. He got up.

“Lie the fuck down,” Dean said.

“Dean, really it’s not a problem.” He started looking for his shoes.

“Lie the fuck down and shut up,” Dean said. “I’m never going to _have_ another boner, so it doesn’t matter.”

“What?” Castiel said, very confused. He sat.

“Bring your wings over, Hubs, it’s a cuddle party,” Dean said. His voice was sarcastic but apparently he was quite serious.

“Very well, Hon,” Castiel said, with a great show of reluctance. Dean threw an arm over him, closed his eyes, and relaxed into the ‘wing-thing’.

Sam took a cell phone pic of them the next morning and texted it to Jody.

Her response: “printed it out and tacked it to fridge LOL”

“you should hear what the girls are saying it’s like Christmas morning”

“you suppose they will ever figure it x out”

Sam considered them, blood and chosen family, and shook his head.

“No. Apocalypses come and go but x Dean being a clueless butthead is 4ever.”

“When r you coming x back”

“Not nearly soon enough for x me. In fact.” Sam considered it, and hit send.

“Care to put me up for a week?” he added.

“A week, a month, a year, you got it,” she texted. And Sam smiled, thinking of the expression on her face as she sent that. It would serve Castiel and Dean right if they didn’t have Sam keeping the peace and wrangling Dean into civility for a week. He got on the internet and booked a flight, and took a cab to St. Louis airport before the non-lovebirds woke up.

 

Dean’s scheduled hangover did not appear. Castiel, unused to sleeping with Dean, had a dream about healing Dean from his aches and pains, and woke up thinking, “How unusual.” He usually didn’t dream at all; now he was sleep-healing Dean, which probably had been triggered by how his etheric wings were fastened in a rather suggestive grip around Dean.

“Erh,” Dean muttered. He sat up.

“Where’s Sam?”

“Gone for a week,” Castiel said, checking his phone.

“What do you mean, gone for a week?” Dean said.

“Yes. He took a cab, and he’s flying out to Sioux Falls in a couple of hours.”

“Why?”

“I imagine because he and Jody are sexually interested in each other,” Castiel said.

“You’re kidding! She’s like our _sister_ ,” Dean said. He sounded on the verge of a meltdown.

“And I’m like the brother you rub your erect penis against,” Castiel said heavily, knowing he was throwing plutonium on the meltdown.

Dean’s voice rose in a most unmanly fashion before he controlled himself. “I - I - you know what Cas, fuck you.”

“Castiel,” Castiel said. “You do not normally refer to me as Cas, although strangely enough it happens more often when you’re angry with me. I’m going to shower and go to breakfast.”

“Maybe we should drive to Sioux Falls,” Dean said when Castiel emerged from the bathroom.

“Maybe we shouldn’t cockblock your brother,” Castiel said.

Dean gaped.

“Did I not use the expression correctly? I thought the Urban Dictionary was usually accurate, if mindlessly obscene,” Castiel said, frowning and tilting his head. “Besides, having four women under twenty in the house is more likely to prevent Sam and Jody from having sex more than anything we could do,” he added.

Dean looked like Ginny Weasley in a meme.

“Have a shower, Dean, you’ll feel better,” Castiel said. “Especially if you masturbate.”

Dean rose, clapped his hands over his ears, said, “La la la la la la shut the fuck up,” and vanished into the bathroom. He closed the door a trifle harder than was necessary.

Castiel opened his laptop and started looking for a case. He made no comment when, for the next week, Dean asked for single rooms with a queen sized bed. Dean’s alcohol consumption dropped and he slept better.

And he said, at the end of the week, during which there had been a lot of non-sexual cuddling, “Don’t tell Sam.”

“Dean, it’s not like we’re having sex. Literally nobody _we_ care about cares what we do as long as we stay in the family business and keep killing evil monsters.”

Dean went quiet. “It’s weird,” he said after a while.

“Nobody gets to tell us how to be married, Hon,” Castiel said.

There was a very long pause.

“Whatever you say, Hubs,” Dean said.


End file.
